Dave Roberts is going to regret these 2 fatal World Series decisions if Dodgers lose

To absolutely no one's surprised, the Blue Jays capitalized as soon as Dave Roberts took Game 5 starter Blake Snell out and handed things over to the bullpen.

Snell got himself into trouble in the top of the seventh, when he gave up a leadoff single to Addison Barger, let the runner get to second on a wild pitch, walked Andrés Giménez with one out, and then threw another wild pitch to put runners on the corners. Roberts let Snell get through his at-bat — a strikeout swinging on Davis Schneider — but brought in Edgardo Henriquez to get the last out.

Henriquez threw a wild pitch. Barger scored. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. walked, then Bo Bichette brought Giménez in. He walked Alejandro Kirk before Roberts brought in Anthony Banda to finally get out of the inning.

Snell had labored through his start and was at 116 pitches when he was pulled, but Roberts really couldn't bear to leave him in to get one more out as opposed to calling on a notoriously terrible bullpen?

Meanwhile, the Dodgers' offense was DOA apart from a solo homer for Kiké Hernández off of Trey Yesavage. Alex Call, who replaced Andy Pages at the bottom of the order, went 0-for-2 with a strikeout. Tommy Edman, who arguably should've been replaced by Hyeseong Kim in the starting lineup, went 0-for-3 with a strikeout.

Taking out Blake Snell, neglecting Hyeseong Kim were two distinct mistakes for Dodgers in Game 5

Apart from Pages, Edman and Mookie Betts have been neck-and-neck as the Dodgers' worst hitters in this series. Roberts made the expected decision to take Pages out and put Call in left field, then the unexpected decision to bump Betts down to third in the lineup, but he could've taken it a step further and swapped out Edman for Kim, who has yet to get an at-bat this postseason.

On a certain level, it makes sense that the Dodgers would rather trust their 2024 NLCS MVP over a rookie, but Edman has been unfathomably bad during the World Series and is playing on an ankle he might have to undergo offseason surgery for in the offseason to fully fix. Kim is a contact-first hitter who batted .304 in eight KBO seasons.

We'll never know how the bottom of the fourth or the bottom of the seventh would've ended with Kim instead of Edman, who popped out and grounded into a double play to end the innings with men on, but if we knew that Edman wasn't hitting and Kim is the freshest guy on the Dodgers' bench, why not just try?

We're running out of ways to say that the Dodgers' lineup doesn't look like an offense that will be able to win their next two games. Roberts is going to have a lot of regrets if that proves to be correct, but taking Snell out and neglecting Kim altogether will be on the list.